Lesson 2: Unschooling Philosophy
Unschooling Definitions
Learning by doing, wondering, figuring things out.
Unschooling is also known as natural, child-led, interest-driven, or self-directed learning, among other names. It is the type of homeschooling that doesn't use a fixed curriculum. It is not an imitation of schooling, but a continuance of the natural style of learning we all experienced before reaching school age, or before receiving any kind of teaching based on someone else’s agenda.
Unschooling is a word used to describe the type of learning we do for ourselves as we follow our own interests. We may or may not consciously pursue any particular type of learning. More likely, any learning that we do occurs spontaneously in the course of our regular activities. We may or may not ask for help in learning something that we need to know to do what we want to do.
Any possible resource may be used in the exploration of our interests that lead to further and varied interests. For example, your child's interest in animals might lead her to the study of animal habitats, ocean life, what animals eat, plant life, various species of birds or fish, careers involving animals, and on and on. Her interest will introduce her to many academic areas in an integrated way. Her pursuit of information will involve activities that she chooses and engages in freely such as reading books, watching videos, taking trips to zoos, museums, nature, talking with professionals, or taking courses. She will learn more in this way, her way, than if she had been presented similar material by someone else in an educational setting, because she followed her curiosity, and because her learning experiences were not unnaturally separated from the real world.
Learning without teaching.
“The other day a young person wrote me saying, ‘I want to work with children.’ Such letters come often. They make me want to say, ‘What you really mean is, you want to work on children. You want to do things to them, or for them–wonderful things, no doubt–which you think will help them. What’s more, you want to do these things whether the children want them done or not. What makes you think they need you so much? If you really want to work with children, then why not find some work worth doing, work you believe in for its own sake, and then find a way to make it possible for children–if they want to–to do that work with you.’” - John Holt, unschooling advocate and author of many books on education.
Instead of teaching, help your children learn by including them in your activities, being available, answering their questions, and assisting them in finding answers. Parents and children both will find that they enjoy this style of learning together as they would not have enjoyed the conflict that occurs when children naturally resist having teaching done to them. Simply doing things with your children will result in learning, and simply allowing them to follow their interests will result in learning.
‘Teaching’ doesn't create learning. It is just an offer of (or a demand for) information. Learning only occurs within the learner. Children may be coerced or threatened into learning (or more likely temporary memorizing), but they cannot be made to learn.
“An interesting light is cast on the Indian attitude to education by the fact that in all fourteen languages of India there is no root word corresponding to English ‘teach.’ We can learn, we can help others to learn, but we cannot ‘teach.’ The use of two distinct words, ‘teach’ and ‘learn,’ suggests that these two processes may be thought of as independent of one another. But that is merely the professional vanity of the ‘teacher,’ and we shall not understand the nature of education unless we rid ourselves of that vanity.” - Vinoba Bhave, an educational philosopher born in the Indian state of Maharashtra in 1895, identified by Ghandi as his spiritual successor.
Mary Griffith’s Three Factors:
- To support your children’s learning, provide them with:
- An environment conducive to exploration and experimentation. Children must have access to what interests them.
- Adults as models and facilitators. People to learn from are as important as stuff to learn with.
- Trust that the child will learn. Learning is a natural, inseparable from living.
From John Holt’s book on unschooling, Instead of Education:
“This is a book in favor of doing–self-directed, purposeful, meaningful life and work, and against ‘education’–learning cut off from active life and done under pressure of bribe or threat, greed and fear.
”It is a book about people doing things, and doing them better; about the conditions under which we may be able to do things better; about some of the ways in which, given those conditions, other people may be able to help us (or we them) to do things better; and about the reasons why these conditions do not exist and cannot be made to exist within compulsory, coercive, competitive schools.”
“...By ‘doing’ I do not mean only things done with the body, the muscles, with hands and tools, rather than with the mind alone. I am not trying to separate or put in opposition what many might call the ‘physical’ and the ‘intellectual.’ Such distinctions are unreal and harmful. Only in words can the mind and body be separated. In reality they are one; they act together. So by ‘doing’ I include such actions as talking, listening, writing, reading, thinking, even dreaming.
“The point is that it is the do-er, not someone else, who has decided what he will say, hear, read, write, or think or dream about. He is at the center of his own actions. He plans, directs, controls, and judges them. He does them for his own purposes–which may, of course, include a common purpose with others. His actions are not ordered and controlled from outside. They belong to him and are a part of him.”- John Holt, unschooling advocate and author of many books on education.
